Wisdom. Applied.

Last fall, Milford Hospital, located in Milford, Connecticut, announced that it was exploring a merger with Bridgeport Hospital, part of Yale New Haven Health.

Hospital systems across the country suffer from bloated fixed costs, huge payrolls, layers and layers of bureaucracy, and management by managers, not by entrepreneurial thinkers.

What you think is permanent is only temporary. How temporary is the question.

As more physicians rush to invest in ASCs, unscrupulous facility promoters/managers scheme to separate physician investors from their money.

Driverless Cars And The Impending Death Of Hospitals by Mark F. Weiss

Several years ago, I read a review in a magazine for consultants of a new book by an “expert” who advises that since business now moves at the speed of light, the “old” strategic question of “where do you want to be X years from now?” must now be “where do you want to be a few days from now?”

In the Wild West days of the 1980s and 90s, it wasn’t uncommon to see as many medical directors receiving stipends from a hospital as there are aspirins in a Costco-size bottle. There were medical directors of this and medical directors of that. All designed, of course, to cement or bond or align (which, in 1990, was a word chiefly applied to automobile wheels) physicians who directly or indirectl...

For years, hospitals have pushed to “align” physicians. Take a ride with Mark as he talks about a reversal in the trend: As what were hospital cases now flow out to independent ASCs, hospitals are begging to be aligned with physicians. But why allow a hospital to be a partner in your ASC deal?

They say that a journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step. Note that the saying doesn’t discriminate between heading in the right direction or the wrong direction.

We all place a different value on what we receive and we’re willing to pay a comparable price. It has nothing to do with the cost to the producer or provider.

We still love you but, hey, we’re in love with someone else who spends less on clothes stipends.

Conflicts of interest. Everyone’s talking about them. Do you have one? They’re apparently bad. Or are they?

We kids joked that “new math” was going to make 1 plus 1 equal 3. Despite our teacher’s inability to conceive that it ever could, in the domain of medical group mergers 1 plus 1 can equal 3.

Let’s say that you’re the CEO of a hospital with fifty or five hundred employed physicians. Who’s your competition? The hospital five miles down the road?

One thing’s for certain, it will be no more walk in the park for the seven defendants convicted for their roles in a bribe and kickback scheme.

Depending on the circumstances, there might be ways to legally structure deal participation on the part of referring physicians. On the other hand, some deals just stink from the start. The problem, of course is determining which is which.

Just like your leg bone is connected to your knee bone, many of your contracts are connected to each other even though you might not readily know it. You can obtain significant leverage by making sure the agreements are coordinated.

Do you know this key to negotiation? The key that will open the door to a done deal, a deal that delivers on your wants?

A physician raises honest criticism or files a heartfelt complaint concerning another member of the medical staff or another member of her group. She’s fired.

If you were going to sell your house, you’d make sure that it’s put into decent or even prime shape before listing it, right?

Alchemists struggled without success for centuries attempting to turn lead into gold.

I recently attended a continuing legal education seminar. From a purely legal standpoint, the models made sense. However, from the practical standpoint, one apparently lost on the presenter, the structures were unfinanceable.

How to Navigate the Rising Tide of Aggressive RFPs

Learn how valuation consultants’ refusal to opine at higher than the 75th percentile is taking the fairness out of fair market valuation and robbing you of your income.

Most medical groups are unable to gain strategic advantage due to their own management bureaucracy. Here’s the cure.